New James Bond Short Story to Appear in November/December PLAYBOY

Continuing a long tradition begun with the publication of Ian Fleming's short story "The Hildebrand Rarity" in the March 1960 issue, James Bond will once again appear in the pages of Playboy Magazine this fall, in a brand new short story. The only difference is this one will be in comic book form. Dynamite and Ian Fleming Publications announced jointly today that an exclusive, 6-page story from the team behind Dynamite's James Bond Origin comic book will see print in the November/December issue. Like the series, the story is written by Jeff Parker (The Interman, Batman '66 Meets The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and drawn by Bob Q, both of whom have done stellar work on the first two issues of the comic. The new story takes place in March 1941, flashing forward a bit from events in the current issues. According to the press release, "James is dropped off the coast of Belgium to help a Resistance cell take out a supply train that's important to the Nazis." This is very exciting news, not just because it extends a longstanding tradition of appropriate brand partnership, but because more James Bond Origin is definitely a good thing! As previously reported, James Bond Origin bridges the gap between the Young Bond novels and Fleming's Casino Royale, finally telling the story of James Bond's war years. The November/December issue of Playboy hits newsstands October 30, but the digital version is already available now. The first two physical issues of Dynamite's ongoing comics series James Bond Origin are currently available in comics shops or digitally.

While Playboy (which now bills itself as "Entertainment for All," not "Entertainment for Men") published many Fleming stories and serialized novels back in the Sixties, the magazine also has more recent history with 007. During Raymond Benson's tenure as continuation author in the late Nineties, he published two Bond short stories and an excerpt of his first novel in the magazine. (The stories were eventually collected in the Benson anthologies The Union Trilogy and Choice of Weapons.) The most recent James Bond short stories to be published in magazines were written by Samantha Weinberg during her stint writing the excellent Moneypenny Diaries spinoff novels, and focused on that character as well as 007. "For Your Eyes Only, James" (review here) was published in Tatler in 2006, and "Moneypenny's First Date With Bond" (review here) was published in The Spectator that same year. To date, neither story has ever been collected.

Thanks to Gary for the alert!

Young Bond Returns in 2014

It's been a big week or two for fans of the literary 007! Yesterday, William Boyd's James Bond continuation novel Solo (set in 1968) was published in the United States (after debuting in the UK a few weeks ago), and today Ian Fleming Publications announced that the Young Bond spin-off series (targeted at Young Adult readers) will resume in 2014 under the stewardship of a new author! Between 2005 and 2008, author Charlie Higson penned five novels for IFP (beginning with Silverfin) about the adventures of James Bond as a boy, long before he ever became a spy. Since Higson was working in the timeline of Fleming's novels (originally published in the 1950s and 60s), these boyhood adventures took place in the early 1930s while the future 007 was a student at Eton. This premise, clearly designed to cash in on the young adult fiction boom that came in the wake of Harry Potter's success, seemed ludicrous to many Bond fans when it was first announced, myself included. But somewhat improbably, Higson pulled it off with astonishing success. His novels were highly enjoyable, respectful of the original Bond canon, and huge hits in the UK. One thing we always knew about Bond's childhood, thanks to the obituary M writes in Fleming's You Only Live Twice, was that he was kicked out of Eton after an "incident" involving a maid. Higson's Eton-set series, therefore, was headed inexorably towards that moment, and sure enough, in his final volume, By Royal Command, James Bond is expelled from Eton.

The new series, therefore, will pick up after that, presumably following the teenage James to Fettes. According to IFP's press release, Random House will publish a quartet of brand new Young Bond adventures starting in fall of 2014. Unfortunately Charlie Higson isn't back for this round. Instead the new Young Bond novels will be written by Steve Cole. Cole is the author of the Atrosaurs books (a children's series I'm not familiar with, evidently geared towards younger readers than the Young Bond novels), as well as several Doctor Who tie-ins and, most relevantly, a teen spy series called Tripwire (the latter co-written with Chris Hunter). According to IFP, he is also a lifelong fan of Fleming's Bond novels. Here's a quote from Cole along with some pertinent details from the press release:

‘I first encountered Bond in print as a teenager, when I read "From a View to a Kill." Fleming´s writing was so vivid and authentic, Bond and the world he inhabited seemed suddenly real to me – and the danger and glamour led me through book after book. It´s both a thrilling privilege and an exciting challenge now to be shaping a new era in the life of such an iconic character – with many firsts and surprises to come as James´s life in the dangerous 1930s develops.’Cole’s first Young Bond novel will launch with a bang in Autumn 2014. It will be published in hardback on RHCP’s highly respected Jonathan Cape children’s imprint.

So these ones will all be published in hardcover in the UK. Higson's first three books debuted as paperback originals before switching to hardcover with the fourth book, Hurricane Gold. (Though the first three were subsequently reprinted in hardcover limited editions.) Those were published by Penguin children's imprint Puffin in Britain, and by Miramax/Hyperion in the United States. No U.S. publisher has yet been named for the new quartet of Young Bond novels. Well.... here's hoping Steve Cole has what it takes to live up to Higson's superb start! I can't wait to find out. (And in the meantime, I've just ordered the first book in the Tripwire series for a taste of his spy style!)

Read my review of Higson's third Young Bond novel, Double of Die, here.
Read my review of Higson's fourth Young Bond novel, Hurricane Gold, here.
Read my review of Higson's fifth Young Bond novel, By Royal Command, here.
Read my review of The Young Bond Rough Guide to London here.

William Boyd to Write the Next James Bond Continuation Novel

I'm traveling right now and thought I had this blog well covered with a few evergreen, non time sensitive posts in the pipeline, but the literary and filmic curators of James Bond seem determined to prove I picked the wrong time to travel with all sorts of big reveals and announcements this week! In addition to the slew of Skyfall stills that MGM released, Ian Fleming Publications made a huge announcement yesterday, reported by The Book Bond (a truly excellent resource for all sorts of information on the literary 007, from the latest breaking news, like this, to detailed examinations of older editions by Fleming and his followers, which I check religiously every day): esteemed British author William Boyd has been selected by IFP to pen the next James Bond novel. The untitled book, due to be published in Fall 2013 by Jonathan Cape in the UK and HarperCollins in the USA, will return 007 to his 1960s roots. The last time we got a historical Bond novel by an artsy, award-winning author, the result was Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care, a crude Fleming pastiche I didn't care for one bit. But I'm much more hopeful about Boyd's take on the most famous literary secret agent of all time. Faulks was dismissive of the assignment from the start, making it clear in every interview that his book was a literary lark for him, and he considered himself well above the material. Boyd, however, has demonstrated a clear passion for Ian Fleming over the years, and used Fleming as a character in his novel Any Human Heart. (In the 2011 TV adaptation, Fleming was played by Casino Royale co-star Toby Menzies.) I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I haven't read Any Human Heart, though it's been in my Amazon wishlist since its 2004 publication. I've never read anything by Boyd, but I'm certainly eager to see his take on Ian Fleming's incredible creation.

The most recent James Bond continuation novel was last year's Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver, which somewhat rebooted the series in a contemporary setting. Some fans seem surprised that IFP would go back to a period setting (Boyd's untitled book is set in 1969, shortly after Fleming left off and shortly after the events of Devil May Care, if the new author chooses to acknowledge or reference them in any way) after Deaver's much ballyhooed but blessedly not very drastic "reboot." I'm not. The current regime at IFP seem keen to explore numerous creative possibilities with different authors (besides the Deaver and Faulks books, they've brought us Charlie Higson's Young Bond series and Samantha Weinberg's Moneypenny Diaries, both of which were offbeat, but very, very good), and as long as they keep selecting exciting writers, it makes sense to let each writer decide on his or her own approach, including the period. That said, reading between the lines of remarks that Deaver made on his Carte Blanche book tour, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he or someone else picked up where that book left off in a few years with another new contemporary Bond thriller. Hopefully the reading public is sophisticated enough to grasp the notion of two (or more) timelines running at once. Personally, I'm overjoyed. I hope they keep hiring interesting and well-regarded authors to pen one-off Bond novels. It gives fans the opportunity to read a lot of different takes on their favorite spy hero. And I'm including Faulks among the interesting authors. I may not have liked his take, personally, but the beauty of this model is that there's always another take I might prefer right around the corner. This rotating novelist plan still leaves the doors open for the likes of Mark Gatiss, Lee Child, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Duns, Charlie Higson (who has yet to tackle the adult 007) and any number of authors I'd love to see tackle a Bond novel! Who knows? Maybe they'll even entice notorious Bond hater John le Carré to take a crack and show us how he would do it... The possibilities remain endless. (Though, I'll admit, that last one I mentioned seems really unlikely!)

Additionally, The Book Bond also reports that IFP is looking to continue the Young Bond series started by Higson... but, unfortunately, with a new author. Higson apparently confirmed this in a tweet, acknowledging that they couldn't wait forever for his schedule to free up. The search is on for that new author.

The Game's Afoot Again: Alex Rider Writer Lands Sherlock Holmes Gig

Reuters reports that Alex Rider and Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz has been tapped by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate to pen a new, officially endorsed Sherlock Holmes continuation novel.  The news story claims that "this is the first time the estate has given official approval for a story since [ACD's] last novel was published in 1915," but that doesn't sound right to me. Surely Adrian Conan Doyle's Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (written with John Dickson Carr) were approved by... him?  I always thought that Caleb Carr one, The Italian Secretary, was official, but I guess not.  Anyway, this new book is, and it will be published by Orion in September. Despite the fact that Horowitz is probably best known as a novelist for his Young Adult series, this is an adult novel and not associated with Andrew Lane's current Young Sherlock Holmes series another officially sanctioned project that seeks to capitalize on the success of Charlie Higson's Young Bond novels.  Recall that on television, Horowitz has displayed extraordinary talent with grown-up detective tales, writing for the terrific Poirot series based on Agatha Christie's famous mysteries and also creating the even more terrific Foyle's War, starring Pierce Brosnan's Bill Tanner, the great Michael Kitchen.  In my opinion, the creator of Chritopher Foyle is more than qualified to chronicle the greatest detective of all time!  "I fell in love with the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 16 and I've read them many times since," Horowitz told Reuters. "I simply couldn't resist this opportunity to write a brand new adventure for this iconic figure and my aim is to produce a first rate mystery for a modern audience while remaining absolutely true to the spirit of the original." He doesn't reveal any details about the plot, but in his other work Horowitz has again and again displayed his affinity for espionage stories.  (I'd say at least half the Foyle's have some element of intrigue in them, and Alex Rider is obviously inspired by James Bond.)  So I wouldn't be surprised if that turns up in his Holmes novel as well.  Like Mark Gatiss on television's Sherlock, I doubt that Horowitz will be able to resist including Holmes's elder brother with a secretive government job, Mycroft.  And where there's Mycroft (at least in the world of pastiches, and often in Doyle's original stories), there's usually espionage afoot.

Horowitz's final Alex Rider adventure, Scorpia Rising, is due out on March 22, 2011.

Book Review: By Royal Command By Charlie Higson

While I reviewed the exterior of the latest Young Bond book when it came out in England over a year ago, I never got around then to reviewing the actual contents–which some people claim are the best part of a book!  (That didn't stop me, however, from listing it on my year-end Best Of list in 2008.) Since By Royal Command was finally released in America last week (along with hardcover and paperback editions of the SilverFin graphic novel), now seems like an appropriate time to finally review it.

Charlie Higson concludes his initial cycle of Young Bond novels with a fantastic, exciting Boy’s Own-style adventure. By Royal Command blends together all of the elements the series is known for, then adds that final James Bond ingredient that’s been (rightly) absent from the previous books: spying. This is the culmination of all of the books so far, and pays off many things set up in the earlier novels. I don’t mean plot points (though there are a few that come back to haunt James); I mean themes. We’ve watched the boy James Bond grow throughout the first four books, and now he gets to use everything he’s learned over their course. Here we see him expertly navigate the peculiarities of public school life so alien to him in SilverFin, cope once more with the sort of treachery he first encountered in Blood Fever, and put to use both his mystery-solving skills honed in Double or Die and the boy-versus-nature survival techniques demanded of him in Hurricane Gold. On top of all that, James is plunged for the first time into what Higson calls “the shadow war,” that Great Game of pre-war European espionage.

It was a wise move to hold off on any real involvement with MI6 until Book 5. In SilverFin, James Bond was a boy like any other. He wasn’t surreptitiously trained, like Alex Rider, in the arts of spying; it would have been downright silly to involve him in any sort of official missions. But over the course of Higson’s first four novels, James Bond has earned his future; he’s at last ready to handle some of the demands of international espionage.

Higson delivers the basics of spying in a conversational, easy-to-follow manner. He’s explaining it to kids, but as usual with his writing, even adults won’t feel like they’re being talked down to. Chances are that any adult Bond fan has a pretty good idea of what he’s talking about already (how cells operate, etc.), but it’s very easy to bear with Higson, as his writing style is so brisk and easygoing. He’s never didactic, and he assumes a basic intelligence and a certain level of education of his youthful readers, which is very refreshing. So often Young Adult books, even adult books, and most especially movies (of the Hollywood blockbuster variety) talk down to their audiences. Not so with Charlie Higson, and that’s the secret to these books’ overwhelming success (in England, anyway; hopefully the U.S. will follow): he writes for kids as if they’re adults. Since Ian Fleming wrote for adults as if they were kids (not that he condescended to them or blunted his sometimes very adult themes, but he awakened the same sense of adventure in his readers typically embodied by children’s literature), it’s not surprising that reading the Young Bond books now, as an adult, gives me the exact same rush I got as a kid curled up under my covers at summer camp with a flashlight and a Signet paperback of an Ian Fleming novel.

By Royal Command starts off with a moody spy beginning good enough to satisfy any seasoned fan of the genre. A Russian spymaster enters an overstuffed bookshop in Lisbon, and confronts an agent, resulting in a fatal shooting. It’s a good set-up and a good setting; we’re off to a good start. From there we join our hero on a train bound for the Alps; he’s on his way to join up with an Eton-sponsored school ski trip attended by some other familiar characters from the series. On the train, Young Bond encounters some young Nazis (some Hitler Youth) and bests them at both cards and combat. One of them turns out to be surprisingly sympathetic, though, establishing that not all Germans are bad. I know that sounds simplistic, but actually it’s anything but. Many novels aimed at a young audience settle for an easy black and white view of the world; Higson’s is more textured and more honest. James’ train is bound for the Alpine resort village of Kitzbühel, where he will encounter plenty more good Germans–and good Austrians, including one who helps shape his life.

By Royal Command fills in some blanks that I’ve been anticipating since the Young Bond series began. One of the few glimpses Fleming ever offered of James Bond’s childhood (in the short story “Octopussy”) was his experience learning to ski from Hannes Oberhauser, so I’ve been waiting to meet Herr Oberhauser ever since SilverFin was announced. And here he is. It’s not quite what I’d imagined, but it is still rewarding to witness James’ interactions with one of his earliest mentors. However, since Higson’s Young Bond has always been such an independent character, it’s not surprising that he leaves this adult figure behind and gets into most of his scrapes on his own while in Kitzbühel.

Higson seems really big on telling stories of James Bond against the elements. In Hurricane Gold, it was jungle; this time it’s snow, as petty schoolboy squabbles leave James and his rival trapped atop the mountain after it's closed as a stormfront closes in. The problem with the lengthy ensuing survival course down the mountain is that there is no human antagonist. For me, James Bond works much better in stories of man (or boy) vs. man than stories of man vs. nature. But that’s personal preference. There’s no denying that Higson manages to make the latter quite exciting.

By Royal Command is divided into three parts, and follows a very Harry Potter-like formula: the boy hero has a lengthy adventure before getting to the familiar school setting, and then, once he gets there, time passes. This story unfolds across a whole school term, unlike some of the others which have been relegated to one vacation or even a three day period, as was the case in Double or Die. Part I takes place entirely in the Alps. After his survivalist adventure, James must remain behind to sufficiently recover in the care of Oberhauser and his family. Some of that recovery takes place at a hospital, where he stumbles upon the Thunderball movie plotline of two bandaged plastic surgery patients, presumably about to switch places. This is all intriguing, but James doesn’t really know what to make of it and neither do we, so while we’ve had some thrilling action sequences, there isn’t really enough plot happening yet by the time we finally get to Eton about 100 pages in. James has spent the majority of Part I being acted upon (by nature and by mysterious forces he doesn’t yet understand) rather than acting.

Part II, then, quickly makes up for that; this is the meat of the story. The plot that unfolds in this section involves not only more fascinating depictions of not-always-pleasant everyday life at Eton in that era (James takes an If-like beating from the bullying Head Boy that foreshadows his torment in Casino Royale... only on the other side of his anatomy, if you know what I mean), but also spies, Communists (including a returning antagonist from earlier in the series), historical figures (James’ first encounter with the future Majesty on whose Secret Service he later serves) and the whiff of Royal scandal. On top of all that, there’s that other major youthful event alluded to by Fleming, the trouble with the boys’ maid that we all know ultimately results in James’ expulsion from Eton. The maid in question is the beautiful Roan Power, an alluring slightly older woman who captivates Young Bond in ways that Fleming almost certainly never imagined or intended. In fact, she just might be a Communist agent. Roan exposes a side of James we haven’t seen in any of Higson’s previous novels, and it’s fascinating (though a little bit weird ) to witness James Bond at an awkward age, actually growing up!

Each of the three sections seems sort of self-contained. Part III, therefore, doesn’t feel quite wholly connected to the rest, but it sure is exciting! Part III thrusts James Bond into a John Buchan-type spy chase, and readers get to see the boy who will one day become the consummate professional in his field in an altogether different sub-genre of spy fiction: the innocent abroad, an amateur caught up in a conspiracy he doesn’t fully comprehend. Added onto this scenario, we get descriptions far more gruesome than anything Ian Fleming ever dreamed up when James has to retrieve a revolver from a rotting corpse, a fight with a hulking henchman that could have come right out of a Bond movie (specifically, Sean Connery’s fight with Pat Roach in Never Say Never Again comes to mind), a large scale gun battle involving hordes of British and Russian secret agents and the return of another villain from James’ past... with an Alpine castle lair. Of all of Higson’s books, By Royal Command is probably the most rollicking Boy’s Own adventure, and a worthy finale for the series–or at least the first cycle of the series, if Higson can be lured back for another round.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, though, I did have some problems with the book–most having to do with its final chapters. Therefore, I recommend not reading any further if you haven’t yet read By Royal Command, but intend to. I generally try to avoid venturing into this sort of SPOILER territory in my reviews, but here it’s necessary in order to contextualize the novel in the larger scope of James Bond stories. So you’ve been warned; proceed from here at your own risk

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Unsurprisingly, James’ budding romance with the unwitting Communist agent Roan ends in tragedy. But what kind of tragedy? Higson seems to be setting things up in a way that would force James Bond to sell her out when his government asks him to entrap her. I liked where this was heading, and thought it was a stroke of genius to make Bond the betrayer for once, instead of the betrayed. It would be the opposite of the scenario in Fleming’s first novel, Casino Royale, in which Bond is betrayed by Vesper, a woman he loves. However, that setup turns out to be a red herring, and instead James does end up in the position of the betrayed once more... or for the very first time, I supposed. Not only that, but she ends up dying as well, and Young Bond loses the first of many doomed loves in his life. It’s a situation which older Bond fans (but perhaps not the young ones) have seen many times before: twice in Fleming (Casino Royale and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), twice again in Gardner (Death Is Forever and SeaFire) and revisited again in The Moneypenny Diaries, which take place in the aftermath of OHMSS. Therefore, Roan’s death is problematic. Having James Bond love and lose at so early an age in some ways diminishes the impact on him of Vesper’s death years later. After having his heart broken by Roan and Vesper, it’s a wonder poor Tracy ever had a chance! Then again, Higson does manage to engineer things so as to put Bond in the position (vis a vis women) that he’s in when he meets Vesper, to show us why he’s put up those walls she manages to break down–or the “armor,” as they say in the movie version. So it does work. I’m just a nitpicker. But I had to mention this potential problem. Continuity issues aside, however, By Royal Command is an excellent entry in and a fitting conclusion to the adventures of Young Bond, clearly laying a path to a future we’re all very familiar with...

Investigate past coverage of Young Bond on the Double O Section:

An Introduction to Young Bond, and a Comparison to Alex Rider
By Royal Command: Judging A Book By Its Cover

A Review of Hurricane Gold, the Fourth Young Bond Book

Hurricane Gold: Judging A Book By Its Cover
A Review of Double Or Die, the Third Young Bond Book
A Review of The Young Bond Rough Guide To London
Various Young Bond News Items

Cover image courtesy of Young Bond Dossier.

Charlie Higson's US Book Tour Dates Announced

The Young Bond Dossier has the first confirmed dates for Young Bond author Charlie Higson's first American book tour since 2006 when Blood Fever came out.  He'll be in the US this May, promoting the imminent American releases of By Royal Command, SilverFin: The Graphic Novel and his non-Bond young adult novel, The Enemy (not to be confused with the Lee Child novel or the Roger Moore movie!).  So far the tour includes stops in New York, Washington D.C. (at the International Spy Museum), Minnesota, Illinois and Missouri.  Personally, I'm bummed because there are no West Coast dates announced yet, and apparently Higson won't be making an appearance in California this time.  But if he comes through your state, definitely make a point of heading out to meet him!  There aren't many opportunities to get James Bond novels of any sort signed these days, what with Sebastian Faulks being purposefully stingy with his autograph and Samantha Weinberg's The Moneypenny Diaries being woefully underpromoted.  And if you're one of the few Bond fans who still digs in his or her feet and declares, "that's kid's stuff," I'll attempt one last entreaty to get you to pick up one of Higson's excellent books.  (Try Blood Fever for starters.)  Like The Moneypenny Diaries, they're infinitely superior to Faulks' straightforward Bond novel!

More New Young Bond Artwork

Hot on the heels of giving us our first glimpse at Kev Walker's awesome cover art for the upcoming UK paperback edition of Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier, today the our friends at the website the Young Bond Dossier (as opposed to the book) deliver the cover artwork for the forthcoming American hardcover edition of the final book in Charlie Higson's first cycle of James Bond novels, By Royal Command.  And... I'm afraid this one's kind of a letdown.  For some reason, publisher Disney/Hyperion has not hired Walker to do the final cover in the series.  (To date, Walker has handled all representational artwork for this series, on book covers, promotional pieces and even a graphic novel adaptation of the first novel, Silverfin.)  Instead, we get perfectly serviceable cover art by Owen Richardson–but it's not the same.  It doesn't match the rest of the series.  Not only does it not look like Kev Walker's art; it looks too much like it's trying to look like Kev Walker's art!  Once the publisher opted to go with another artist (for whatever reason; perhaps Walker was unavailable), I think they should have let him do his own thing and the results might have been better.  Instead, this piece echoes the composition of Walker's covers... but it's slightly off.  I really don't understand why the same publisher that rejacketed the first two books so that they would have uniform paperbacks for the whole series would change things up with the final entry!  I was looking forward to a matching set of Walker-jacketed books.  Oh well. 

To focus on the positive, Richardson's artwork certainly isn't bad; it's just not what we're used to.  I really like the artist's style (although it seems to have been somewhat altered in a vain attempt to match Walker's); it's very pulpy.  I like that this Young Bond looks decidedly older than he did on the last cover (appropriate, given his age and what he's been through in the course of the series) and I like that Richardson's depiction of Bond Girl Roan Power reminds me of the Bond Girls on the classic Pan paperback covers of the 1950s. 

Anyway, head on over to the Young Bond Dossier to see the full cover for yourself, in all its high-res glory. 

By Royal Command comes out in the US on May 18, and can be preordered on Amazon.

New Young Bond Paperback Artwork Revealed

The always-on-the-ball Young Bond Dossier has revealed the cover artwork for the upcoming UK paperback edition of Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier.  Personally, I love it!  YBD points out that this cover, depicting young James Bond in action as drawn by Kev Walker, breaks decades of tradition not only for Young Bond, but for any British James Bond book since the Eighties.  All UK editions of the last twenty plus years have shied away from any pictorial representations of 007 himself up until now.  Well, I'm glad they made the change.  While certain past cover depictions (ahem) don't age so well, this is a classy, classic image of young James, and a very dynamic pose befitting a dossier called "Danger Society."  (It's also reminiscent–though I'm sure unintentionally–of the fantastic OSS 117: Murder For Sale poster, as well as a great Italian Persuaders one.) The paperback comes out June 3, and can be preordered on Amazon.co.uk. 

I'm rather tardy on my review of the hardcover edition, which came out last fall, but suffice it to say that this is an excellent volume and a definite must-have for fans of Charlie Higson's Young Bond novels.  It also contains quite a lengthy James Bond short story.  For now, click here for more information on the book.

And be sure to head over to the Young Bond Dossier to see a much larger version of this very cool cover!

Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier Available Today

Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier, the official companion volume to Charlie Higson's series of James Bond novels about Bond's adventures as a schoolboy in the 1930s, is out today in the United Kingdom. It's available from Amazon.co.uk, and a signed edition is available in independent bookstores and directly from Ian Fleming Publications online. The shiny, silver volume (complete with silver gilt-edged pages) makes a nice companion piece to the golden UK hardcover of Hurricane Gold. And it's a great book! Besides a brand new, seventy page James Bond story by Higson, there's scads of great information about young Bond's world done in the style of the Dangerous Book For Boys. This is great stuff!

More On New Young Bond Short Story

Charlie Higson's conclusion to his first cycle of Young James Bond novels, By Royal Command, came out in paperback in England this week, complete with an exclusive excerpt of Higson's brand new Young Bond short story, apparently titled "A Hard Man To Kill." (For those with short memories, that will be included in November's Young Bond companion book.) As usual, the Young Bond Dossier has the scoop on all the details!

Young Bond Companion Book Release Moved Up

The Young Bond Dossier (the website, that is, not the book) has some more information on the previously reported upcoming companion volume to Charlie Higson's Young Bond novels. The site reports that the release date for Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier has been moved up from late November to October 29. (This is a UK release date, of course; as with all the Young Bond books, a US release is probably still years away, after the entire series of books has been published.) Furthermore, YBD touts the companion's brand new Bond short story by Higson as "the longest James Bond short story yet written, surpassing the previous record holder, 'For Your Eyes Only' by Ian Fleming." The title of the story is still being kept under wraps, but a preview of it will appear in next month's UK paperback release of Higson's fifth and (for now) final Bond book, By Royal Command. The high-res cover artwork comes courtesy of YBD.

Young Bond Companion Due Out This Fall

Zencat at the Young Bond Dossier has some fantastic news this morning. Even though there's no new James Bond novel scheduled this year from Charlie Higson (and even though the future of his Young Bond series is totally unknown at this point), there will be a Young Bond companion book this fall, called Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier. I love the title not only because it evokes Zencat's terrific site and news section (called Danger Society News), but also Kingsley Amis's James Bond Dossier, one of the first serious studies published on the subject of Ian Fleming's novels. I love companion books like this, and I've hoped for one for the Young Bond novels. We got a taste of what such a volume might be like in the awesome Young Bond Rough Guide to London (which I reviewed in full here), a mini-book given away in England to promote Higson's third novel in the series, Double or Die. And it was a great taste, which definitely left me wanting more! The credited author on the cover shown on the Young Bond Dossier (the website, that is; this is going to get confusing) credits only Charlie Higson as the author, but it seems unlikely that the author actually penned such a guide in its entirety. I wonder if Zencat had a hand in this book? (I certainly hope so! UPDATE: He didn't. Oh well.) Best of all, YBD reports that, in addition to "in-depth character profiles," features on cars, weapons and exotic locations and other "facts, statistics, photographs, maps, and illustrations by Kev Walker," this book will also feature a brand new Young Bond short story by Charlie Higson! Will this story give us our first hint of what happens to James after he's expelled from Eton at the end of the last novel? (No, that's not a spoiler to anyone who's read Fleming; it's the end we knew was coming the whole time for the initial series.) Or will it be the shipboard story that Higson had previously mulled set to take place immediately following the events of Hurricane Gold involving the return of SilverFin's Wilder Lawless? I guess we'll find out this fall...

Updated with cover artwork thanks to YBD. As you can see, the book follows the design format of the British Hurricane Gold hardcover I loved so much! We can tell it's shiny, but I can't quite figure out from this image exactly what color it is.

New James Bond Book Out Today In America: Hurricane Gold

While the five-novel series has wrapped up now (for the time being, anyway) in Britain, Charlie Higson's fourth "Young Bond" James Bond novel, Hurricane Gold, is just hitting shelves today in the United States. Under an exciting painted dust jacket by artist Kev Walker, the Hyperion hardcover is a bargain at just $16.99. (Or, of course, much cheaper at various online outlets.) It should be easily findable at chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, or at your local bookshop. Higson's take on the character may be aimed at young adult readers, but grown Bond fans will find them very rewarding reads. I was certainly dubious of this series at first, but Higson is a terrific writer and has created some wonderful James Bond novels–much better, in fact, than Sebastian Faulks' ill-advised but well-publicized stab at the franchise last year.

Read my full review of Hurricane Gold here.

Random Intelligence Dispatches For March 18, 2009

M:I:IV Still in the Cards?

Ain't It Cool has a story that doesn't really contain any specific news, but does confirm that Tom Cruise is still interested in perpetuating his Mission: Impossible franchise. The gist is that Cruise says he's working on a story for the fourth installment. (Surely what he means is that he's working with a writer on the story?)

Clemens Remade

Avengers mastermind Brian Clemens will see one of his early Seventies theatrical thrillers remade. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Karl Urban has joined the cast of a remake of Clemens' creepy classic And Soon the Darkness (co-written with frequent ITC contributor Terry Nation and directed by Avengers director Robert Fuest). Amber Heard and Odette Yustman star, and the action has been moved from France to Argentina but the plot (involving a girl who disappears while on a bike trip abroad) remains the same. The trade doesn't mention Clemens or Nation or Fuest in their story.

New Young Bond Paperback Out in America

The Young Bond Dossier reports that Charlie Higson's third James Bond novel, Double Or Die(full review here), has been released in paperback in the United States. This comes hot on the heels of re-covered reissues of the first two books a week ago. You should be able to find them all at your local bookstore! The hardcover edition of the fourth volume, Hurricane Gold, is set to hit American stores in a few weeks.

In another article of interest at YBD, Zencat mentions that the success of the Young Bond novels for Puffin in England has prompted rival publisher Macmillan to emulate the formula with a series of officially-sanctioned Young Sherlock Holmes novels. This has no relation to the Steven Spielberg-produced movie of that name; it's an original series of books by Andrew Lane. Three have been commissioned. I hope Lane's good, because the reason for the success of Young Bond isn't the concept (which could have easily turned out as terrible as it sounds on paper), but Charlie Higson, who pulled it off brilliantly!

New Bond Cover Art

The fabulous Young Bond Dossier has scored exclusive first glimpses of the new American paperback cover art for Charlie Higson's soon to be re-jacketed Young Bond novels. Head on over there and check them out! (YBD also provides Amazon links.) The new covers for SilverFin and Blood Fever sport illustrations by Kev Walker, who also drew the graphic novel adaptation of SilverFin (recently released in the U.K.), as well as numerous Young Bond promotional images. The style matches the existing cover for book three, Double Or Die, released in hardcover in the U.S. earlier this year. I actually loved Walker's original cover painting for Blood Fever, but there's no question that the new artwork is more eyecatching than the first American SilverFin cover! It's always nice to see James Bond get illustrated book covers.

Meanwhile, CommanderBond.net unveiled the U.S. mass-market paperback cover art for Sebastian Faulks' adult James Bond novel Devil May Care last week. I held off on posting a link, because I felt I already had too much Bondian negativity going on with my disappointed review of Quantum of Solace. But now the cool new Young Bond art balances things out enough that I feel like I can comment on the Devil May Care paperback: as you may have guessed, I kind of hate it. Boy, that's one busy cover! Lots and lots of heavy blocks of text partially obscuring a heavily Photoshopped image of a girl and some flames. I don't require simplicity, but if things are going to be garish, it needs to be in the right way, like Richie Fahey's beautiful retro-style Ian Fleming covers. It's too bad things turned out like this, after the art on the American hardcover actually outshone its British counterpart. CBn also posted the artwork for the American trade paperback edition, which is slightly better because it's generally cleaner.

But, to stay positive, the good news is that Higson's Bond novels (far superior to Faulks' anyway) get snazzy new illustrated covers in North America!

Click here to view the new cover for SilverFin.

Click here to view the new cover for Blood Fever.

Click here to view the mass market paperback cover for Devil May Care.

Click here to view the trade paperback cover for Devil May Care.

Click here to read my review of Devil May Care.

Young Bond Graphic Novel Out Today

Today marks the long, long-awaited return of James Bond to the medium of comics. While he made an unofficial (and altogether unflattering) appearance last year in Alan Moore's spectacular League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (drawn by Kevin O'Neill), Bond makes his first official comic book appearance since Topps' ill-fated GoldenEye adaptation way back in 1995. Although Topps had announced an ongoing 007 series following GoldenEye, they didn't even make it to issue 2 of their movie adaptation before cancelling it, thanks to their delayed schedule. Bond's last complete comic book appearance was a two issue miniseries at Dark Horse called Shattered Helix. Dark Horse also had their share of unfinished Bond stories, including the promising A Silent Armageddon and the serialized short story "Minute of Midnight." (But they had their share of successes, too, the best being Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's Serpent's Tooth.) I'm not sure why James Bond has had so much trouble in the comics medium in America; he seems like a natural fit. Alan J. Porter will provide a few answers in his definitive book on the subject of Bond in comics due out any day, James Bond: The Illustrated History of 007.

But back to the news at hand: today sees the UK release of the first new licensed Bond comic in over a decade, a 160-page graphic novel adaptation of Charlie Higson's first Young Bond novel, SilverFin, illustrated by Kev Walker. As usual, the Young Bond Dossier has all the details--including a signing opportunity for lucky UK fans! I can't wait to dive into my own copy--whenever it finally arrives from Amazon.co.uk.

Young Bond, of course, is not the first teenage spy to make the leap from Young Adult novels into comics. There have been two graphic novel adaptations of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider novels so far, with a third due out this winter.

By Royal Command: Judging A Book By Its Cover

Less than a week after it came out, I received my copy of Charlie Higson’s latest James Bond novel yesterday from Amazon.co.uk. (Not bad!) Never mind the story; I haven’t had a chance to get very far into it yet. As always, I’m going to start out by examining the book itself. By doing exactly what the adage warns against: judging it by its cover. Physically, By Royal Command is one satisfying book! I like this cover design even better than the shiny gold one for the last Young Bond, Hurricane Gold.

There is no dust jacket. Looking at pictures of it, I had imagined the book’s boards themselves to be faux leather, I guess because of how the shiny silver photographs. That would have been really cool (and would be a great idea for the eventual limited edition, assuming there is one), but what we do get is also cool. Like Hurricane Gold, the cover is glossy and shiny. Best of all, the striking silver, red and black Union Jack–as well as the Young Bond target design and some of the text–is embossed. It’s a pleasure to run your fingers across the cover and feel the subtle depressions.

The boards are also quite thick, and very sturdy, lending a truly satisfying heft to the book as a whole despite being printed on the same rough, lighter weight paper as all the Young Bonds. This time, though, that paper is the ideal choice, perfectly accented by blood-red page edges, like a Hymnal. For some reason, colored page edges have gone out of fashion, but By Royal Command is a welcome throwback. It reminds me of books I had to read for school–read by countless other students before me. Of the stacks I used to arrange so carefully when I worked summers in the best used bookstore in New England. It is the highest compliment when I say that By Royal Command will make a fantastic used book one day. I know there must be other bibliophiles out there who understand that it’s a good thing when I say I can smell the must already. This is the kind of volume that just touching it, thumbing through its scarlet-edged pages brings all the scents of all the wonderful used bookstores I’ve ever frequented flooding over me. All thanks to those wonderful red edges!

There are also red end papers adorned with a repeating Young Bond logo motif (not as striking as the glossy red poppy end papers of the UK Devil May Care, but still neat), and sparkly red faux stitching at the top and bottom of the inside spine–another nice touch. This volume clocks in at 354 pages, followed by acknowledgements (including one to The Young Bond Dossier’s John Cox–congratulations, John!) and advertisements for the SilverFin graphic novel and the Young Bond online game.

Like I say, I haven’t read it yet. The story may be rubbish, though judging from what Higson has delivered before, I highly doubt it. But from a purely tactile standpoint, this may be my favorite Bond book ever! It’s much, much more satisfying than the lightweight, cheap-feeling Devil May Care first edition, and also more satisfying than the pricey but discouragingly featherweight Higson limited editions. I just love picking it up! I keep doing that, weighing it in my hands. I know most of you probably think me certifiable after reading this post, but I also know that there are some readers and collectors who know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you’re one of them, with even the slightest interest in James Bond, this is a first edition worth tracking down! (Although it will be even more rewarding to track down amidst the musty stacks of an overstuffed used bookstore on some winding country road in twenty years...)

Final Young Bond Novel, By Royal Command, Out Today In UK!

Today sees the UK release of the newest James Bond novel, the eagerly-awaited By Royal Command by Charlie Higson, the grand finale in his series of "Young Bond" adventures. Sadly, it won't be available in America for sometime to come (even the most recent book, Hurricane Gold, doesn't come out here until next year), but its UK release is a good occasion for me to essentially repost what I posted last year when Hurricane Gold came out over there, and once again shamelessly plug this series for any new readers I've picked up since then.

I’ve said it before, but I know that it needs to be said again and again (because I still hear Bond fans who haven’t read them complain that these aren’t "real" Bond books): these are among the very best of the post-Fleming continuation novels, and they're certainly better than the recent adult Bond pastiche, Devil May Care. (And truer to Fleming's character.) In my opinion, they are as "real" as Amis or Gardner or Benson. And unlike those latter two, who updated 007 to the eras in which they were writing, the Young Bond stories actually take place in Fleming’s continuity; they’re set in the 1930s, the boyhood era of the famous Cold Warrior who was in his prime in the Fifties and Sixties.

I can understand the argument that the basic premise (young James stumbling upon various fantastic adventures around the world) is a little hard to swallow, but is there any reader who actually swallows all of Fleming’s premises? Of course not! You accept them at face value (easy enough to do in the context of Bond’s world) and enjoy the ride. And that’s what you have to do with Higson’s books as well. Furthermore, he goes to great lengths to make the scenarios as believable as possible. The young James is not a junior secret agent like Alex Rider; he’s an Eton student (strictly adhering to what little Fleming established about his creation’s boyhood in You Only Live Twice; yes, he's due to be kicked out for "trouble with one of the other boys' maids" in By Royal Command!) who becomes embroiled in scenarios of large and small-scale intrigue rooted in the historical era.

And the novels are well-written. Very well-written. Higson is a gifted novelist who can both tell a story and turn a phrase. Just as Samantha Weinberg’s Moneypenny Diaries series turned out to be so much more than "007 for the Bridget Jones set," Higson’s books succeed far beyond their "James Bond by way of Harry Potter" premise. Ian Fleming Publications may have raised eyebrows with their rather transparent publishing schemes, but they deserve a lot of credit for picking the right authors to pull off such potentially disastrous set-ups. If you’re a Bond fan and you haven’t yet read his adventures as a young man, now is the time to start.

It’s also a good time to re-examine past coverage of Young Bond on the Double O Section:

An Introduction to Young Bond, and a Comparison to Alex Rider

A Review of Hurricane Gold, Higson's Last Book

An In-Depth Examination of the First Edition of Hurricane Gold
A Review of Double Or Die, the Third Young Bond Book
A Review of The Young Bond Rough Guide To London
Various Young Bond News Items

And for up-to-the-minute coverage of all things Young Bond, look no further than the excellent Young Bond Dossier. YBD offers the most extensive reportage on the web about By Royal Command, including lots of photos of the super-snazzy, previously embargoed cover and coverage of the Young Bond web game, The Shadow War.

Random Intelligence Dispatches For August 25

Young Bond Cover Leaked

It may be officially embargoed until the book's publication on September 3, but if Penguin was really keen on keeping the cover for Charlie Higson's upcoming Young Bond finale By Royal Command a secret, then they probably shouldn't have put copies of the book on sale more than a week early at the Edinburgh Book Festival! (See details on the Young Bond Dossier.) I won't spoil their fun by posting it here, but the cover is very easy to see on Ebay. And, unsurprisingly for a series whose last volume was all gold, it looks amazing. We're coming right up on the publication date, and I can't wait to see what Higson's cooked up for us! Pre-order By Royal Command at Amazon.co.uk (no U.S. release date yet) and be sure to check out YBD for all the exciting things going on in the world of Young Bond in conjunction with the book's debut.

Craig's Flashbacks In U.S. Theaters This September

It looks like Daniel Craig's Flashbacks of a Fool will indeed get a U.S. theatrical release--albeit a brief, limited one designed as promotion for its impending November 4 DVD debut, timed to coincide with the opening of Quantum of Solace. DVDActive has the artwork for the Anchor Bay DVD--and the press sheet, which reveals that the company plans a theatrical release in September "to produce awareness and buzz." Flashbacks of a Fool, which features a soundtrack heavy on Seventies glam like Roxy Music and David Bowie, came out in British theaters this past spring. It's been something of a passion project for Craig, eager to balance his big budget Bond work with more personal, independent films like this.

Limited Edition Of Roger Moore's Autobiography Available For Pre-Order

Also Higson's Hurricane Gold

Hatchard's, the UK online bookstore that specializes in signed and limited editions, now has a limited edition of Roger Moore's upcoming memoir My Word Is My Bond available to pre-order. The book, limited to a numbered print run of 1,000, comes in a slipcase signed by the actor. The website doesn't offer any artwork for the limited edition.

Hatchard's also has the signed, numbered and slipcased limited edition of Charlie Higson's latest Young Bond novel, Hurricane Gold, available for pre-order. Both books will ship in October.

Regular editions of My Word Is My Bond come out in the UK in October and the US in November.